Cognitive Neuroscience

Program Type: Cluster

The Cluster for Cognitive Neuroscience focuses on research concerning all aspects of human cognition from a neuroscience perspective. The cluster supports the Cognitive Neuroscience community at Northwestern in ways that facilitate the goals of faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.

Participants have come from many different departments and programs, including Psychology, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Psychiatry, Neurology, Physiology, Music, Linguistics, Medical Social Sciences, NUIN, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. For complete and up-to-date information, please see the Cognitive Neuroscience Program Website.

Programs and Events

The Cognitive Neuroscience Program sponsors many events to support our community. In particular, we host weekly meetings of the Cognitive Brain Mapping Group (CBMG), which meets by videoconference between the Chicago and Evanston campuses.

We have an annual graduate-level course, Mind and Brain, initiated in direct response to the cluster initiative (Cognitive Science 401; this course will not be taught in the 2016-2017 academic year but will resume the following year). In addition, we also sponsor the Cognitive Neuroscience Data Blitz, which brings most of the community together annually, alternating locations between the two campuses. We also sponsor talks from visiting speakers each year.

A series of special meetings with trainees provide opportunities to gain from the expertise of a series of faculty guests. These meetings are designed to include a wide-ranging discussion of professional issues, and attendance is limited. The trainees may ask various questions to obtain inside information about science, career issues, professional strategizing, and work/life coordination.

Who Should Apply?

Doctoral candidates from any field are eligible to attend our events and thus to learn more about cognitive neuroscience research at Northwestern. To receive email announcements about CBMG meetings and other events, subscribe to the CogNS listserv by visiting the NU List Management System.

We fund a select group of trainees through NIH/NINDS T32 funding for the Training Program in the Neuroscience of Human Cognition and through TGS funding for affiliate trainees. This funding covers annual stipends and tuition, with some money for conference travel and other research expenses. Applications are solicited each spring for these funding slots, which are competitively evaluated, and are generally awarded to advanced students who have already zeroed in on their dissertation research.